Analysis Services
Object Architecture
The following table summarizes the objects used to administer Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Analysis Services.
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Analysis Server | The server component of Analysis Services, designed specifically to create and maintain multidimensional data structures and to provide multidimensional data in response to client queries. |
| Databases | Databases serve as containers for related data sources, cubes, dimensions, data mining models, and the objects they share. |
| Data Sources | Data sources store the specification of the information necessary to access source data for an object such as a cube. |
| Dimensions | Dimensions serve as a structural attribute of a cube. A dimension is an organized hierarchy of categories (levels) that describe data in the fact table. These categories describe similar sets of members upon which the user wants to base an analysis. |
| Levels and Members | Levels are used as elements of a dimension hierarchy. Levels describe the hierarchy from the highest (most summarized) level to the lowest (most detailed) level of data. |
| Measures | Measures are, in a cube, a set of values that are based on a column in the cube's fact table and are usually numeric. In a cube, measures are the central values that are analyzed. |
| Cubes | Cubes contain a set of data that is usually constructed from a subset of a data warehouse and is organized and summarized into a multidimensional structure defined by a set of dimensions and measures. |
| Partitions | Partitions are the storage containers for data and aggregations of a cube. |
| Aggregations | Aggregations are defined as a table or structure containing precalculated data for a cube. |
| Roles | Roles contain a set of Microsoft® Windows NT® 4.0 or Windows® 2000 user accounts and groups with the same access to Analysis Services data. |
| Commands | Commands are used to hold an administrator-defined command that is automatically executed when a client accesses a database, cube, or role. Commands include calculated members, named sets, and actions. |
| Member Properties | Member properties contain information about the members of a dimension level in addition to that contained in the dimension. |
| Data Mining Models | Data mining models contain a virtual structure that represents the grouping and predictive analysis of relational or online analytical processing (OLAP) data. |
| Data Mining Columns | Data mining columns contain a structure that is used to define the content of a data mining model. A column can contain data or nested columns. |